I originally planned on this being a full on review of Amazing Spider-Man. Something thought out and considered, a piece of writing that read like someone was trying to explain himself in a ordered and intellectually stimulating manner. But y'know what? I don't feel like. This movie doesn't deserve it. I wish not to think about it more than I have to. If I do that, than I'm just gonna be grumpy the whole night, and you know how that is.

So...yeah, ASM sucks. Not totally and utterly, but it is a sucky movie, failing to work both as a piece of entertainment and as a cinematic understanding of one of my favorite characters. And it wasn't like I went in wanting to hate it. In fact, back in 2010 when they announced the reboot, I was one of the few fans I knew of looking forward to it. I loved the first two Raimi movies, the second of which I still consider to be the greatest superhero movie ever (yes, I rank it over The Dark Knight), but Spider-Man 3 left a horrible taste in my mouth. I was excited to see a Spider-Man movie with a younger Peter Parker still going to Midtown High, maybe with a deeper exploration of Parker's coming-of-age (the Raimi films were more focused on a man trying to find balance in life, as opposed to a kid forced to become that man sooner than wanted). And I thought the casting of Andrew Garfield was pretty darn good.The Social Network had just come out and I knew him from that great performance; I had not yet had my opinion of him tainted by his horrible New York accent in "The Daleks Take Manhattan."

Those were the least embarrassing monsters he faced in New York City, as we soon discovered.

We'd be getting the Lizard, as well as a proper Gwen Stacy after the horrible botch job in SM3, Uncle Ben was gonna be played by the Illusive Man, Spidey had actual web-shooters as opposed to those gross organic ones in the Raimi trilogy, and back then I still had a prayer of seeing some sort of connection with the developing Marvel Cinematic Universe. I had learned to temper my expectations after the last one, but I was optimistic. I was looking forward to seeing how this turned out.

But then the costume design was revealed, and the whole thing just sort of snowballed from there, and now I'm typing this, and you will read it, and that's where we stand.

And before any of you tell me, yes, I realize SM3 is worse. That was a confused, ridiculous mess of a movie plagued by too many chefs in the kitchen. Yes, some of it reaches unfathomable levels of stupidity, and I am well aware of that. In fact, I can confidently say that movie was my personal Ovaltine decoder ring moment. It taught me that the world isn't perfect and that bad movies can be made from really good things.

But that doesn't excuse ASM one bit. Sucking slightly less then something else is not a mark of quality. That's a mark of sucking slightly less. Slightly.

Like I said, I'm lazy and don't want to talk about this, but I feel as though I should explain to you guys why I'm constantly putting this film down. Thus, I shall resort to the dreaded list format from here on out. But first, I feel it only fair to point out the things this movie does right, because I'm a great guy.

So...

- Martin Sheen and Sally Field, while maybe not as warm as Cliff Robertson and Rosemary Harris, make a pretty good Uncle Ben and Aunt May. They're convincing as real parental figures, and they're likable enough that I'm appropriately bummed out when Uncle Ben meets his fate.

- The fight scene in the school is neat. It's fast-paced and intricate like a Spider-Man fight should be and it's cool seeing the webbing play a larger role than before.

- I like the part where he smashes the alarm clock.

- Pffffffffffbbbbbt.

Okay, THINGS THAT SUCK:

- Peter Parker sucks as a protagonist, and it's all thanks to the script. It can't decide what it wants him to be and he ends up being an unlikable cypher who mumbles his way through everything because Garfield can't figure out how to play him. The most consistent character trait he has is a weird stalker-y streak, wherein he takes pictures of a girl he has a crush on (but doesn't know) and uses her picture as his desktop wallpaper. Yikes.

Chicks dig the Edward Cullen hair.

- Gwen Stacy has no freaking character. She's just there to serve as a plot device and love intrest, the latter of which is unfortunate seeing as how she shares absolutely no chemistry with Parker. Aren't Emma Stone and Garfield dating in real life?

- Oh hey, the Lizard is here, and he sucks too. Ignoring the fact that the film just ignores the fact that he has a family he's struggling to keep safe from his lizard-ness (that was all in deleted scenes, more on that later), his character is even more confused than Parker's. First he's the only nice scientist at OsCorp, but then he's implied to have betrayed Parker's father, but then he's a anti-hero trying to save war veterans, but then he's going after Parker, and then he wants to turn everyone into lizards because...he can? You can't give a shit because you can't figure out whether you should.

- They eff up the origin story big time, turning Parker's motivation for becoming Spider-Man into a ripoff of Batman Begins and having Uncle Ben die over chocolate milk. And I wouldn't mind them changing the context of origin story so much if it wasn't so obvious they only screwed up the origin story out of a hipster-y desire to be different.

- In fact, the whole movie can be summed up as lacking any vision. This isn't the work of a director trying to tell a story; this is Sony trying to crap out a Spider-Man movie in time so the rights to the character doesn't go back to Marvel/Disney. This not only leads to characters and motivations that aren't well thought out, but it's obious that much of the movie went through the ringer in the editing room. Almost every scene that made the Lizard's character make any sense at all were cut, and that Untold Story bullshit isn't seen in the movie at all after the first act.

- Speaking of which, nobody gives a shit about Peter's parents, nor should they. It's an uninteresting plotline that only serves to make the movie more angsty and "gritty" then it should be, and it only furthers the biggest moment of "not getting it" in the entire movie: the implication that Peter Parker, one of the greatest everyman-turned-hero characters ever, a character defined by the randomness of his origin story and his struggle to try to come to terms with the greatness thrust upon him, was always destined to be a Spider-Man.

And yeah, the mysterious parents story was in the comics. And it was awful.

- The movie follows the Marvel Ultimate Universe example of making everything connected in a bid to make the narrative easier to follow. Everything is a freaking coincidence: Peter's dad just so happened to work with Curt Connors, who just so happens to work for the company whose experiments turn him into Spider-Man. And Connors also just so happens to be Gwen Stacy's mentor, while Gwen just so happens to be the daughter of the police captain going after Spider-Man.

Remember when I said The Winter Solider was awesome because it trusted the audience was smart enough to follow along? Yeah, this is the opposite of that. All it accomplishes is making the world feel smaller than it should.

- The character designs are god awful. There's a reason no one has messed with Steve Ditko's original spider-suit design all that much since its creation in 1963: it's perfect. It's dynamic and unique and just oozes cool, no matter what. Following in the footsteps of the rest of the movie, the spider-suit redesign is different for the sake of being different. The over-complicated gloves, the pajamas-like quality, the basketball texture, the yellow eyes, the mismatched colors, the silver sneakers. It all adds up unmitigated fugliness, standing toe to toe with the 2011 movie Green Lantern uniform in terms of sheer ass.

Ewewewewewewew.

The Lizard doesn't look too much better. You had one job, guys: a lizard man wearing a lab coat, and instead you give us this flat-faced goof that looks like a reject from The Super Mario Bros. Movie.

That's hilarious.

And even worst...

- I can't take Peter's struggles as Spider-Man seriously because the movie doesn't. He keeps coming home with bruises and blood-shot eyes, he bends a freaking goal post with a football, suddenly materializes on the 10th floor of building without using the entrance, and fails to give one excuse for any of it, and yet no one questions him on any of this.

- The movie attempts to make Spider-Man more jokey than the Raimi Spidey, which is line with the character. Unfortunately, this movie is remarkably unfunny and quite obnoxious. If I see that stupid small knifes bit one more time.

- If it wasn't "Dig on this," the crane scene would be the dumbest thing to ever happen in these pictures.

- Peter Parker discovers his powers by ripping a woman's shirt off, and then he orders his web fluid online.

- Speaking of which, he uses Bing. Loser.

- The musical score is generic as hell.

- The web-shooters have muzzle flash.

- Edward Cullen hair.

Okay, I'm done. Screw the sequel, I aint waisting money on Elctro looking like Mr. Freeze and characterized like Jim Carrey's Riddler while the Green Goblin looks like the mutated offspring of Beavis and Butthead, all while Parker actively tries to mess up his girlfriend's chances of going to college.